Who Let the Bots In? How to Keep AI Notetakers Out of Your Zoom Meetings

AI notetaking bots like Otter.ai, Read.ai, Fireflies.ai, and Fathom can join your Zoom meetings automatically, often without your knowledge. They do this by connecting to a participant's calendar, scraping the meeting link, and auto-joining as a separate account. Once in, they transcribe the audio in real time and store it on a third-party server, under that service's own terms of service and privacy policy.

In plain terms: allowing a participant to bring one of these bots into your meeting is the same as allowing them to record it, except the recording goes directly to someone else's platform, outside of your control. To make matters worse, meeting hosts often won't even know who the bot belongs to or which participant's account it is linked to. The bot simply sits there in the participant list, as a separate attendee.

For meetings that involve confidential, legally privileged, or otherwise sensitive information, that is a serious problem. And because no single setting in Zoom blocks every AI transcriber, a layered approach is the only reliable solution to keep them out of the room.

Here is how to set it up.

Step 1: Block third-party domains

This prevents AI assistant accounts from joining at the account level, before they ever reach your meeting.

1. Sign in to your Zoom Web Portal.
2. Go to Settings > Meeting > Security.
3. Turn on the toggle labeled "Block users in specific domains from joining meetings and webinars."
4. Click the pencil icon and add the domains you want to block, separated by commas. Known AI notetaker domains include: otter.ai, read.ai, fireflies.ai, fathom.video.
5. Click Save.

This list requires manual maintenance. New AI transcription tools appear regularly, so review it periodically and add domains as needed.

Step 2: Disable third-party apps

Domain blocking alone is not enough. A participant can still invite a bot through the Zoom App Marketplace. To close that door:

1. Sign in to the Zoom App Marketplace as an administrator.
2. Click Manage in the upper right corner, then select Admin App Management > Apps on Account.
3. Find any third-party transcription apps and click Manage App to disable or remove them.
4. To enforce this organization-wide, uncheck the option that allows users to install unapproved apps.

Step 3: Enforce the Waiting Room

If a bot slips through, for example, because it joined from a calendar invite before your domain block was in place, the Waiting Room is your safety net.

1. Enable the Waiting Room in your meeting security settings.
2. Before admitting anyone, review the waiting room list.
3. Look for names like "Otter.ai Meeting Assistant" or "Read.ai Bot," or any participant that does not correspond to an actual person you are expecting.
4. Do not admit them.

Step 4: Remove bots already in the meeting

If a bot has already joined, you can remove it manually.

1. Open the Participants panel.
2. Find the bot's name, click the More button (the three dots) next to it, and click Remove.

One critical caveat: once a bot has been in the meeting, anything it already transcribed may not be retrievable or deletable from that service's servers. That is why the Waiting Room matters so much. Removing a bot after 20 minutes of sensitive discussion does not undo those 20 minutes.

When AI transcription is fine and when it is not

These tools exist for legitimate reasons. Internal team meetings, study sessions, training calls: in many contexts a transcript is useful and uncontroversial. The issue is not the technology itself but the lack of visibility and consent. A bot that joins without announcement is a problem not just for privacy but for basic trust.

As a meeting participant, it also makes sense to scan the list of participants to identify any bots and report them to the host as needed for removal when appropriate, as they are easy to miss in very large meetings.

The practical rule is simple: everyone in the meeting should know a bot is present, what it records, and where that data goes. If that transparency is not there, the controls above exist for exactly that reason. 

When One Keyboard Isn't Enough

Today I thought I'd share with you a little toy I have sitting next to my keyboard that makes my life a little easier: an X-Keys keypad. It looks just like this:

What is it?

You can probably tell just by looking at it: it's 24 additional programmable keys. So, does that mean you can program 24 actions/macros/functions with an X-Keys keypad? No, you can actually program more, as each key can be programmed to do something different depending on which application is open, plus there are layers.

The keypad is programmed with a bundled program called MacroWorks 3.1. Here's a list of features from the manufacturer's website:

The keys are backlit, and you can choose either blue or red, and even choose the backlighting on an individual key basis. I have turned off the backlighting altogether, so that's also an option.

What do I use it for?

First, I have to say that even though I have all these keys at my disposal, I find myself using about half most of the time, the bottom half to be precise, and also sometimes the right column. The bottom right key is my "Confirm" key in the various CAT-tools and environments I use: SDL Trados Studio, as my main CAT tool, but also Wordbee, MemSource and occasionally MemoQ. Other SDL Trados Studio related actions include frequent actions, such as Concordance, Quick Add New Term or Filtering. Other keys perform functions such as:

• Launch the Find and Replace dialog
• Open specific folders
• Launch or switch focus to specific programs
• Type characters that are not readily available on my Spanish keyboard layout, such as >, <
• Dedicated keys for straight and curly quotation marks, so no more switching between the two kinds
• Launch AutoHotkey macros (particularly useful when I assign a finger-bending key combination to an AHK script, such as Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Q)
• Mouse left and right clicks
• Zoom in and out in programs like InDesign
• Copy, cut, paste
• Backspace

You get the idea... Here's a partial list of my key assignments:

How difficult is it to program?

Not difficult at all! You just open MacroWorks, either by pressing a little button on the back of the keypad or via Windows, and you can go to an interface where you choose a key, assign an action to it and save it. Key assignments can be stored in the hardware itself or in the software. 

To make things easier while programming your keys, there are four options to enter a macro event: Text, Keystrokes, Shortcut, Function, all quite self-explanatory.

Here I'm assigning a button to launch BaccS, my translation management software:

My only complaint* is that when I first got my keypad, MacroWorks was perfectly functional and responsive, so much so that I would often change key assignments depending on what I was doing, since it could be done in seconds, but at some point, it started getting really slow, and now it takes a bit (or a lot) of patience to add new key assignments, as the software has become quite unresponsive, even with the latest updates. I would show you a little video, but it might be more fun to watch paint dry. Really, it's that slow, at least on my system. This doesn't seem to be a widespread issue, though, and I probably just need to find the time and the right support to troubleshoot it.

*Update: Writing this post inspired me to seek some support with my issue, and PI Engineering replied to my email quickly, offering a solution, which worked perfectly, so MacroWorks is quite fast once again. If you use Windows 10 and are experiencing speed issues with MacroWorks, see the bottom of this post for the fix.

Final words
My X-Keys keypad is one of my favorite computer add-ons. When I'm on the road, I really miss it and can feel the difference it makes when I'm back and using it again. It's one of those little things that can help increase productivity. And every little bit counts!








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Fix for the MacroWorks 3.1 speed issue in Windows 10, as provided by P.I. Engineering support:

First lets elevate some permissions and run the software in “compatibility mode for WIN 7” . Go here C:\Program Files (x86)\PI Engineering\MacroWorks 3.1  and for the following entries:

MacroWorks 3 Launch

MacroWorks 3g

MAcroWOrks 3r

Macroworks3r.vshost

Right-Click and select “Properties>Compatibility Tab” place a checkmark in the “Run this program in compatibility mode for: (Win7)” box and the “Run this program as an administrator” box, then select “Apply” and reboot the computer entirely for the changes to take effect.

AutoSuggest gets even better with Studio 2011 SP2

AutoSuggest has always been one of my favorite Studio features, but what I didn't like was the fact that it was case sensitive. Suggestions from termbases, translation memories and AutoText entries were only offered if the translator started typing the entry in the same case it was stored in.  My workaround for this was storing frequently-used items in a variation of case combinations. As an example, for the phrase "for example", my termbase included the following Spanish translations:

POR EJEMPLO
por ejemplo
Por ejemplo

This meant more work, of course, and could only be done with Multiterm termbases and AutoText entries, and not with suggestions coming from AutoSuggest dictionaries (which are automatically created by Studio from TMs and not user-editable).

With the release of Studio 2011 SP2 a few days ago, this is no longer an issue. There is now an option to enable/disable the case-sensitive feature of AutoSuggest. Here's how to do it.

Note: If you haven't downloaded SP2 yet, make sure you do, as this feature is not found in previous releases.

Go to Tools - Options - AutoSuggest, you will see this screen:

The checkbox is checked by default, so if you liked the original AutoSuggest behavior, just leave it checked.

Uncheck the Case sensitive checkbox if you want AutoSuggest to override the case of your entries. With "Case sensitive" unchecked, suggestions are adapted to the first letter you type, whether uppercase or lowercase, as shown here:

I think other Studio users will agree that this is certainly one of those little things that make a big difference.

Creating Bilingual Glossaries in Instant Text

Note: For more on text expanders please see Adding a Text Expander to My Translation Workflow and Emulating AutoSuggest Functionality with InstantText.

This is a short how-to for loading bilingual lists to Instant Text for quick glossary/termbase access in Instant Text. A big thanks to Emmanuel over at the Instant Text forum for explaining how to do this.

The short of it is that for this to work, the list needs to look like this:

source term=target term
(the = is an actual = sign)

Example:

absolute value=valor absoluto

My exported termbase from Multiterm looks like this:

source term TAB target term
(the TAB here means a tab space)

Example:
absolute value valor absoluto

If you start out with a simple text file that has the source term TAB target term sequence, the first step is to replace the tabs with =s and save the resulting file as a text file (*.txt).

Once you've done this, go to Instant Text, and right click on the Phrases Advisories, then select Importer.



In Importer, choose Formulas. In the Dialog that opens, choose the *.txt file you just created.

Enter a name for your new glossary.

Choose Yes when asked if you want to keep your current abbreviations.

And that's it!

Now go to Instant Text and click next to the word Glossaries, choose Open and select your newly created glossary.

When you double-click on it, you will see the contents of the glossary, with the source term on the left under the Short column and the target text on the right under Expansion.




With this, if your new glossary is active (either as the main glossary or as an Includes glossary), you will be able to start typing your source term and see the target term appear as the expansion when you hit the marker key.

In the example above, if I start typing addendum, I will see the bilingual entry and can expand the target form by either:

1. Writing the full word and hitting my marker key

addendum + marker key expands into anexo




or

2. Writing "adde2" (since addendum is the second entry in the list) and hitting my marker key.




Notice that for terms that have two words or more, spaces between words are eliminated when the source term is entered into the short form, as short forms don't admit spaces.




If you want to add new terms to your bilingual glossary, just remember that the target term needs to go in the Glossary Phrase Entry field and the source term, minus spaces, needs to go in the In Short field, as shown below:



By adding bilingual glossaries to Instant Text, we could have two kinds of entries available to us:

- Monolingual, to be used when you know the term and just want to take advantage of text expansion

- Bilingual, to be used when you need to refer to a specific termbase

And of course, how to organize these glossaries is entirely up to each translator. Instant Text is flexible enough to allow both monolingual and bilingual entries to coexist in the same glossary or to have separate glossaries for each.